Pathfinder: Are You Switching to 2e?

When I ask a question, anticipating a certain answer is when I get the most surprising answers. Recently on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, and MeWe, we asked two simple questions: are you still playing Pathfinder 1e, and do you see yourself changing to 2e (or the playtest) anytime soon? I anticipated a mix of everything from already switched to never gonna switch with the majority going to “skipping the playtest but converting at some point in the future.”

That was not what I had gotten. Not even close.

So I am putting up a poll to find out how you feel about the transition and what game you think you will be playing. Please answer and share your thoughts in the comments below. Make your voice heard. Please share this poll with your gaming group and other gaming friends. The poll closes Nov 9th so respond and share now.

Remember you can always find our Pathfinder products like the Book of Heroic Races: Advanced Compendium in print and in PDF at the JBE Shop. You can also find all our Pathfinder goodness at DriveThruRPG/RPGNow, Paizo, and the Open Gaming Store. You’ll find some highly rated monster books, adventure modules, and player supplements that you should download now. If you are planning on continuing with PF1e, show your support to those that support the game.

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35 thoughts on “Pathfinder: Are You Switching to 2e?”

Pathfinder 1 has issues, I was alright with the idea of a new edition, but I don’t like what I see of the 2nd edition or how Paizo has handled the development process. I might consider trying it out if the final version shows significant improvements. Given how much work is needed and Paizo commitment to a release date on the 10 year anniversary of the original Pathfinder’s release, I don’t have high expectations, though.

Our group is still digesting the changes. I ran a short playtest of PF2 and the group wanted to do a longer one to get a better feel for it. In the meantime we’re still full steam ahead with PF1. Personally I like the new PF2 better.

My Group and I do not plan on switching. We love playing 1st edition as it is an improved version of 3.5 D&D which we all love. Pathfinder 2nd edition seems to move away from the intense detail that 3.5 and pathfinder have shown for a less detailed simpler system, in the vein of 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons. While the system is fun and fine my group and I prefer 3.5 and pathfinder. In which we heavily rely on third party developers to produce fresh and inspiring content.

My group has no interest in switching. We’ve got enough adventure paths to last us, and I’ve got plenty of fun 3PP stuff to use. There are a couple of things I think I might steal for running my games but overall it’s just not a game we are interested in playing.

Our group is a varied bunch (like a lot of tables), but the majority of us have no interest in switching for the foreseeable future.

PF1E is a robust, lived-in ruleset, and while it has its problems, we see the end of 1E as an opportunity to go in and do a massive application of house rules to craft the system to our liking, knowing that there’s nothing new that might make trouble for us later.

Not only that, we still have around a dozen adventure paths we still want to run, so Paizo will continue to earn our money, but it won’t be with their 2E product.

We’ll probably look it over in six years or so after it’s grown enough to be as robust as 1E.

There’s a lot of things I like about PF 1e, but also a lot of things I dislike. Finally what I disliked won over and my groups converted to D&D 5e. When PF 2e came along, I took a look, and it seems like they took the things that I disliked about 1e and did a whole lot more of that. 🙁

So I can see the appeal to some people, but PF 2e looks to be expanding the stuff I dislike even more, so right now I have pretty much no interest in PF 2e at all.

I do hope it works out for them, however! D&D 5e needs a solid rival especially for those who want a more complicated game. That’s just not me.

Our group is going through the playtest now (which is a bit exhausting) and will almost assuredly be switching once the finished rules come out, possibly even converting campaigns in progress.

It’s not a unanimous thing, though. Our players that are deeply steeped in PF1 are excited. And the brand new person is picking things up and enjoying herself. But the ones who never fully got PF1 are struggling.

Part of it is that the playtest, by its nature, really punishes rote learning. The rules are constantly changing and it’s harder to just follow along with what the experts are doing because even they’re learning as they go along.

But there’s also some stuff that’s just hard to use unless you’ve read and understood the book. And, back to the origins of the hobby, that’s never really been how most people learn the game. So they’ve still got some development work to do.

If we had wanted a simplified gaming system we would be playing 5th Edition now. How can Paizo not realize that? An updated 3.5 engine to clean up the current Pathfinder rules would have been cool, but this is just ridiculous.

We’re trying the playtest but couldn’t keep up with the speed so we’re way behind. People were okay with trying something different, and we’ll probably finish the entire adventure even though everyone else will be long done. As far as I know, though, none of us are thrilled with 2E or at all interested in switching.

I have too many favorite classes outside the core rulebook (ok,they made cor my favorite one, but there are others), so I would wait until they make more material in any case. Though I did not like very much what my friends that did playtests say. So… there are lots of material to run, I will be sure now that the rules do not change whlile I’m not looking….Should be fine. Especially with my speed of running APs. Will take me another year to finish RotRL, so…

I was hoping for a PF 1.5, or a d20 3.75: to keep moving the game ahead, in the interesting direction of ‘Occult Adventures,’ or even the ACG. Games get better by play, and by incremental improvement. PF2 is not going to reach that level until it has a 2.5, or 2.75.

There is some stuff I really like in the playtest rules but overall it is an over-designed, overly-complicated mess. Unless there is a significant course correction before the final release I will not be switching.

It’s hard to say at this point. The playtest is clearly incomplete and clearly a work in progress. We’re running the test scenarios, but obviously won’t be converting existing campaigns to a work in progress.

When it’s done, then we’ll have to take a look and make a decision. But really it’s too early to think about it right now.

PF1 has issues. But PF2 aas issues too. I don’t see reasons to chance from a imperfect system I know and like to other imperfect system that I don’t know, it’s rule-heavy, has less material and I dislike a lot of it design directions.

Dag, I’m still waiting for Paizo or Jonbrazer to finish releasing stats for the rest of the evil demigod equivalentsf for the various outsider groups to even consider a switch. I tried ordering the playtest during the pre-order and my room mate was able to pick it up at the local gaming store while I am still to this day waiting for my copy. I’m a huge Dominion of the Black fanboy and what I saw in the playtest copy my room mate got saddened me greatly. So seriously Paizo how can you even me to consider transitioning to a new edition when I’m still waiting for the stats of my boi Orgesh the faceless god? It’s becoming clear with their recent AP Return of the Runelords that Paizo is to interested at this point at just clearing their workload queue before August 2019 rather then delivering a fine tuned next addition or satisfactory treatment of their current lore and icons which makes this normally very staunch paizo supporter one very sad panda bruh.

It’s time for a new edition. We *need* a new edition. Just not THIS new edition. I enjoy playing Pathfinder. I’ve tried D&D 5.5 -erm- the Playtest, and it misses the mark on all levels. If I want a robust, crunchy system (my usual preference), I play Pathfinder. If i want a very casual, ‘beer and pretzels’ system, I play 5e. Pathfinder 2e is trying to be both and ends up being neither.

My group tried the Playtest and felt it was D&D 4th edition all over again. It’s trying to hard to be a hockey shootout instead of a hockey game. We’ll stick with PF1E, and our 2nd choice is D&D 5E. Right now, PF2E looks like something we won’t even consider.

Hey Jon Brazer, are you going to keep supporting PF1/3.5? Because that would be incredible. I have a lot of concerns with PF2, and Paizo closing so many threads on their forums when those threads became critical was a real bummer, and felt like a customer-relations problem. I’ve spent untold amounts of $ on 3rd edition & Pathfinder 1st ed. materials, and would happily keep doing so into the future.

I’d love it if Jon Brazer came out with PF1.5 to cleanup a few things, without the “extreme makeover” approach of PF2. I’d be happy with a Starfinder-Pathfinder merger more or less. Or, just keep on with PF1/3.5. 🙂 Thank you!

The official answer to that is: maybe. It is something we are considering. We don’t have a definite answer at this time. For the moment, we are working on converting over much of our Pathfinder material to 5e. I suspect that when we are done with this conversation run, we’ll have a better idea of what we are doing with Pathfinder and how 2e will shake out.

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